Reputation is everything for an e-commerce brand. A study by Trust Pilot shows that 89% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase.
Managing your online reputation is essential to your success, but it can be a complex task to collect and distribute everything that consumers are saying about your business. That’s why if you don’t have the time, knowledge or resources to effectively manage your own online reputation, it makes sense to work with a company that does.
We spoke with Joe Santillan, the regional growth manager for Reviews.io to learn how their business can help elevate yours.
Q: How would you define what Review.io does?
JS: We are a Google licensed global reputation management tool.
Q: How do you help brands develop their online reputation?
JS: We collect and distribute overall feedback on your brand, both positive and negative that exists across the web. Positive, obviously to know what products are performing best, what areas of their service are doing great and also what areas they can be improved upon. Whether that is a bad experience with a service-based company or a product that’s just not worth the investment or the purchase. But we cover both sides of the spectrum, not just the positive.
Q: Why do you collect negative reviews?
JS: Because Google requires us to have a level of transparency of both positive and negative. We’ve held seven licenses with them for the past ten years and we have to provide every bit of content both positive and negative to them. It also gives a really clear understanding of the overall reputation of that company for consumers as well. We’re not manipulating the content.
Q: And once you’ve collected those reviews, you help brands integrate them into their website and other marketing channels.
JS: Exactly. We have a few different tools to display the social proof. For example, we have social proof banners that easily integrate with Instagram Stories, Pinterest, Etsy, Twitter and Facebook. So all of those can be automated moving forward and you can decide which platform is most valuable for your brand.
Q: You also help brands generate the reviews they need. What are some of the tools you offer to help them to do that?
JS: We recently rolled out an incredible new video review tool. We really anticipate the video testimonies to be at the forefront of review collection in the next three to five years because we think they hold a lot more weight than text. You really can’t manipulate a video review. There has to be a real person involved who is saying what they think.
Q: Video reviews are relatively new. Are you getting a good response from them?
JS: We are and it’s surprising because we didn’t think that it was going to be a huge success this early. It might be due to the fact that the reviews are published directly from your mobile device and everyone is already used to using their phones for Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok. It’s just super easy for people to whip out their phone to make quick little videos about what they think.
Q: What is the value of reputation management to a start-up brand?
JS: So at the beginning phases, you can expect up to a 354% uplift as far as online visibility and credibility. People are going to start landing on your pages more. You’re going to be able to convert at a higher level, but the most important thing we offer is our relationship with Google. We have a direct feed that’s going to be able to send these product reviews over to Google Shopping. That’s where you’re going to see a true high level of conversions occur because now you’re not solely relying on your website.
Now you’re on a reputable place such as Google and their shopping tab. Then with the feed that we have and all the product rating reviews that we collect, we’re going to distribute them alongside the Google Merchant account that they have and that’s gonna see an increase of upwards of 30% in revenue, just by having the products there. You can start your own Google Shopping account, but what we can do that other people can’t, with the license we have is to directly distribute reviews to those ads.
Q: If you’re distributing the reviews through Google, will this also help your SEO?
JS: Absolutely. When new reviews do come on to your website those pages get reindexed. So Google registers them as fresh and up-to-date content provided by a unique user and that can improve your ranking. And the reviews can also be used in keyword searches.
Q: What are some of the upcoming features for Review.io that you’re excited about?
JS: Reviews syndication is the next phase because then you’re able to connect reviews that you get from different retailers. So if I sell a product and I’m also selling through Target, Walmart, Vitamin Shoppe, eBay, or Best Buy, I would be able to distribute all the content that I’m receiving on my website to each of those channels to make a better representation of the actual product. And it’s interchangeable. So reviews collected by one retailer can be distributed to the site of another, so you can really maximize your exposure and credibility. Syndication has been a huge, huge piece that a lot of people have been asking for, and we’re finalizing that partnership, within the next, I want to say three, three weeks.
Q: What has your relationship with Advertise Purple been like?
JS: Having the affiliate marketing space, while also having the review collection is like a match made in heaven because you guys are driving business to their website, but once the customer gets to the website and they see okay, this is great, but nobody’s leaving reviews, how do I really know that the credibility is there? How do I know that this product or this business provides a good service or a good product? So by working together, you guys are driving them to the website and we’re over here providing credibility. It’s like ketchup and mustard.
Review.io provides so many different features and perks for their clients that we couldn’t include them all in this spotlight, but if you think they’d be a good fit for your brand or you’d like to learn more, reach out to them directly to find out if they’d make a good partner with your brand.
